cdrom tower problems

I am using (smb.conf) "root preexec" and "root postexec" to mount and dismount the cdrom disks. The users mounts all of the CD-ROM's as a drive letter and never disconnect from them. (Several of their programs require a permanent drive letter be assigned to their respective cdrom drive in the tower.)

This makes changing the disks a problem. (Their content changes on a weekly basis.)

So, I installed (an smb.conf) "deadtime" of ten minutes. Presto! I can now removed the disks after ten minutes if the clients are not attached to any of the files on the cdrom disks.

But, the next time the client wants to use the disk, he get the empty mount point and not the cdrom disk. In other words, after he gets deadtimed off the cdrom, he doesn't trigger "root preexec" because he is already logged on.

Does anyone have a better way of doing this? Is there a way to get the "root preexec" to re-execute after they have been deadtimed?

If the CDrom tower is mapped to a Windows 2000 client, the browsing to mapped drives in the pull down arrow is horrendously slow [especially the first time you browse after boot up]. Blow off this mapped CDrom tower and the Windows 2000 clients speed right back up again.

Okay...know what the problem is. Received newer software for tower. Didn't fix problem. They said on the phone that software supporting active directory won't be out until September.

Question: the slow down of browsing being caused on the Win 2K machines...does anyone know if making the cdrom software "AD" compatible will fix my Win2K workstation problem? Should I retire this tower and just buy a couple of cd rom drives for my new server as most of my tax research is going to online [asp models] anyway?